Just Call Me Superhero

by Alina Bronsky

  “Ferdi!” screamed Tammy shrilly. I’d bet anything that she’d completely forgotten him. She’d forgotten that she even had a son. Ferdi didn’t wake up, but Marlon could no longer pretend he was asleep.

  “He wanted to come with me,” he said. And the helplessness in his voice was as ill-suited to him as the look on his face, the same look he’d had on his face at the train station when we left Berlin for Marenitz. “Then he fell asleep here.”

  Tammy rocked back and forth and stared at Marlon with her eyes wide open. He smiled pitifully past her.

  “It’s fine,” I said and lifted Ferdi up. He was sweaty again and smelled like rye bread. I nuzzled his hair then nodded at Marlon as if he could see, wished him goodnight, and carried Ferdi down to his room.

  “I want to have one of my own someday,” I said after Tammy had tucked in her son and pulled the door to his room closed from outside.

  “Take this one,” said Tammy.

  I wasn’t planning to sleep at all. How would it even be possible with the noise downstairs coming through the floor of Tammy’s bedroom, it was so loud that I was afraid it might lift up the floor. I didn’t think anyone could hear anything. I was woozy, the walls were spinning, we were all over one another, everywhere all at the same time, I couldn’t tell up from down. It felt like gravity had dissipated and I was stuck to the ceiling like a fly, and I kept reaching my hand out to Tammy until she pulled away and squeezed a pillow between us.

  “That’s enough,” she said brusquely. “I can’t take anymore.”

  I found it sweet that she thought a pillow could stop me. I pulled it away and threw it toward where I assumed the floor was. I pressed her forehead to my shoulder the way the guys with graying temples dressed in black had done downstairs in the living room. She was wet and salty from head to toe. I wondered why she was still trembling. Then I realized she was crying, and I couldn’t do anything but hold her in my arms and wait until it stopped. I did it with every ounce of patience I had in me, and didn’t think once about how much would finally be enough.

  I woke up when Claudia knocked on the door and asked if Tammy knew where I was. Tammy lay with her face in the pillow, all I could see were bushels and bushels of tangled hair. I gently shook her shoulder, nothing happened. For a second I thought about how Claudia would react if I answered.

  I waited until Claudia’s footsteps retreated, then kissed Tammy on her left shoulder blade, right where a lizard was tattooed. She mumbled something and tried to hit me and caught my nose with her elbow. Then she sat abruptly up in bed. With her smeared face she looked a bit like a clown.

  She looked at me and her eyes cleared. Then she jumped out of bed.

  “You have to get out of here!”

  I sighed. She peered into the hallway and then shoved me out of the room.

  I ran up to the attic. The clothes that I’d grabbed off the floor and thrown on stuck to my skin. The fact that Marlon would be waiting for me under the roof didn’t bother me. I wanted to tell him everything. Since he couldn’t even see me, it would make it easier. Then he’d say something and I could go on with my life.

  Marlon wasn’t there. His travel bag wasn’t there. The bed was made. On the nightstand was one of my socks.

  I stumbled down the stairs.

  “Claudia! What the hell?”

  The kitchen was empty.

  I ran through the rooms. Where the tables had stood, the tiles were gleaming again. The dishwasher was on. I scratched the back of my neck. Then I went upstairs again and looked in all the rooms except Tammy’s. Nobody was there. No Friedrich, no Richard. No sign of Janne. Not even Claudia or Evgenija. And no Ferdi.

  This must have been what it felt like to go crazy.

  I heard a scraping noise out in the garden. I opened the patio door and immediately wished I could close it again. But he had already turned around.

  “Hello, Dirk,” I said, jammed in the half-open door.

  He was holding a huge blue plastic bag in his hands. He leaned down and picked something up and tossed it into the bag. I had the feeling that I’d already been part of a similar scene a few days before.

  “I didn’t know that you were here.” I shielded my face from the sun with my hand. Only now did I realize I’d forgotten my sunglasses. I apologized.

  “No problem.” He looked at me in a way meant to telegraph how cool he was with it. “We actually spoke yesterday.”

  “Really?” Out of surprise I took my hand away from my face.

  “Of course. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to come earlier to help out. I had to be in court, there was no way around it.”

  “No problem,” I said repeating his words. “And you were here the whole time yesterday?”

  He let the bag drop to the ground and came up the steps onto the patio. He put out his arms and hugged me so tightly I had to fight for air.

  “Let me say this again in peace and quiet. I’m very sorry. Your father must have been a wonderful man. I feel for you guys.”

  I nodded, then freed myself and gratefully created a bit of space between us. He went back to the garbage bag.

  “Wait!” I called, worried that he too might disappear into thin air. I wanted to ask him about the others but I didn’t know how.

  At that moment I heard the familiar sound of tires on the gravel driveway, car doors closing, the click of heels on the flagstones.

  “Breakfast!” called Evgenija and Claudia simultaneously.

  Ferdi had asked whether we could eat on the patio. I hadn’t heard him ask for anything during all the time I’d been here. Together with Dirk I carried a round table out. Claudia filled a bamboo bowl with rolls and croissants from a paper bag as big as a child.

  “Uh,” I said. “Where are my . . . ” She looked at me. I didn’t know how to ask her about them. If she realized how hysterical I was becoming she’d definitely start worrying.

  “Your . . . ?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled with her broad mouth. Her eyetooth was red with lipstick. “They had to catch an early train. We took them to the station in two cars. Where did you sleep? The only room we didn’t look for you in was the garage. Is that where you were?”

  “Yeah.”

  She jabbed me in the ribs. I held her hand.

  “Claudia,” I said. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “I know.” She put marmalade jars on a tray and handed it to me. The milk and coffee pot she gave to Dirk, who was waiting next to me.

  “Now go,” she said to him because he didn’t budge and was standing there staring at her with his mouth open. “Have you never seen me before or what?”

  I went out quickly. Ferdi was tipping back on his chair the same way I always used to. But he couldn’t yet do it very well. He looked as if he might tip over at any second and hit his head on the stone slabs. I tried to imagine what would happen then. I grabbed his chair at the exact point that it started to go over. Ferdi didn’t even realize he was going to fall. He was annoyed until I picked him up and put him on my shoulders.

  “Stay,” said Ferdi from above. “All the others need to go, but you should stay.”

  “I’ll stay,” I said. “Another whole day.”

  In the end I stayed two days, a whole day longer than Claudia and Dirk, a half day longer than Tammy’s mother. Claudia and Dirk had to work. Dirk waited next to the open passenger door while Claudia hugged first Tammy and then her mother. Then she put her arms out toward me, reconsidered, and pinched my cheek.

  “You don’t always have to hurt me, Mother,” I said.

  She peered into my eyes and shook her head as if I’d done something wrong again. As if I’d done everything in my life wrong. Everyone watched closely. This wasn’t the moment to ask her questions.

  “Drive carefully,” I said and then they were gone.

  Mama J
enny kept practicing a Russian poem with Ferdi right up to her departure. I didn’t ask whether I should go with her to the airport. Ferdi didn’t go, either. I held him in my arms as if he was three instead of six so his Ukrainian grandmother could kiss him goodbye without bending down. I couldn’t shake the feeling that she still looked at him skeptically, like there was something that bothered her about him. In essence she looked at him the same way Claudia looked at me.

  She kissed me three times on the cheek then, with an impish smile, she ripped off my sunglasses.

  It took my breath away.

  She tossed the glasses to her feet and stepped on first one lens and then the other with her heels. The glass shattered. Evgenija swept the shards aside with her foot and got into the car as Tammy honked impatiently. Tammy didn’t see a thing. I put Ferdi down. He avoided looking at me.

  “That grandma, huh?” I said. I was happy to be alone for a moment at last. Nearly alone. Ferdi leaned against my legs and oddly enough it didn’t bother me one bit.

  We were both asleep on the couch when Tammy got home. I sensed her shadow on my face even through my new glasses, and woke up.

  “Your mother isn’t too thrilled about your career as a gold digger, eh?” I whispered because Ferdi was still asleep. “She no doubt had great hopes for you, a distinguished academic track, and now you’re just sitting around in this crap town going gaga. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “It’s none of your business. Is this yours?”

  “Did you try to trick him? Did you want to stay in Germany? But the era when a girl like you would be willing to get pregnant so easily is long gone. When I saw your mother I knew immediately that you didn’t need to do that.”

  “He tricked me,” said Tammy wearily. “He was apparently sure he was sterile. I thought maybe he’d had a vasectomy after you. A child was the last thing I wanted. And now he’s gone forever and I’m left to dole out the soup. So tell me, is this yours?”

  Now I noticed that Tammy was holding a medium-sized blue bag in her hands.

  “No.”

  “Did Claudia forget it maybe?”

  “Maybe.” Then I sat up and carefully pushed Ferdi’s feet off my groin and took the bag. I knew immediately who it belonged to. My heart was in my mouth.

  “I’ll call her,” I mumbled, pushing past Tammy and running upstairs.

  I locked the door and put a chair in front of it. I sat down on the bed, but it didn’t seem secure enough so I sat on the chair blocking the door. I closed my eyes, felt around for the zipper, and opened the bag. Then I pulled out the camera, turned it on, and pushed play.

  Hello, people,” said the guru into the lens, smiling feebly. The camera seemed to wobble in his hands, the picture was awful, and his facial expression was strained. He pulled his hat frantically off his head. The camera shook even worse. Instead of turning it off I stared with wide eyes at the display.

  “Hello, children,” said the guru and something happened to his eyes. They glazed over strangely. I felt a sense of embarrassment well up in me. I didn’t think men should cry.

  “Hello, dear children,” said the guru. “You know by now that you aren’t my only ones. You’re just my . . . the most interesting. I love you all. You don’t have to believe me. You have no reason to trust me. But I can sleep a little easier knowing that you at least have each other.”

  The camera slipped out of my hands and I grabbed it back. There wasn’t much to see. The guru looked at me from the display and cried. I shifted impatiently in my seat.

  “Don’t think too poorly of me,” he finally managed to say.

  At that moment my thumb pushed the fast-forward button. I didn’t want to hear him anymore.

  The guru’s face grimaced in fast-motion. It was impossible to tell whether he was talking or just silently stewing over his thoughts. His hand flew up to his forehead, the hat landed back on his head at some point and then was taken off again.

  I had no patience. I slowed the playback to normal speed again when Janne’s face appeared. Janne in the garden next to Marlon, who was running his finger along the wheel of her wheelchair, a gesture that made me turn red. One of the first recordings we did together. They looked good, both of them. But it didn’t help them. If the guru had his way they would be each other’s half-siblings.

  And mine as well.

  I leaned my head back and laughed myself sick.

  They were nice recordings, blurry but atmospheric, they looked as if they’d been shot decades ago rather than last week. The kind of movies you showed your grandchildren. That’s me as a child. Right there I’m traveling with my . . . uh . . . never mind. That’s your great-aunt Janne. She was so pretty then. And Marlon would have surely broken my nose that day if he wasn’t as blind as a mole. I got lucky. What happened to your great-uncle Friedrich, you’ll have to ask him yourselves, I never understood it. Here he still looks like a cheap teddy bear won at the funfair. For some reason he’d planned to off himself back then but then he’d reconsidered. Maybe he’d found out he couldn’t have had the inherited diseases he’d embraced up to then.

  My finger swept along the camera bag. It had a few side pockets, something was crackling inside, I pulled it out because I thought at first it felt like money. But it was just a piece of paper, folded up several times to make it very small. I unfolded it and smoothed it out.

  It was a list of names. Quite a lot of names, with numbers next to them, and next to those, in parentheses, women’s names. Birth dates: they started three years before mine and ended two years later. Mothers and their children. It was easy to find our six. They were all marked with stars.

  I didn’t want anyone to think I had friends. Certainly not friends like them. We would never be friends. In reality it was far worse. In reality everything was far worse. And weirder.

  I couldn’t find a doorbell so I knocked with my fist and pushed it open. I still remembered how I always walked by this place on the way to kindergarten. The smell of horses and straw crept under the door and out onto the street and had intoxicated me. Sometimes I’d stopped and waited for the door to finally open and a horse that I was sure lived there to come out. But it never happened, not a single time.

  “Come in!” called a woman’s voice but I was already inside.

  She was small and round and had a smile that reminded me of Lucy. She was about fifty, maybe older. She looked at me a little surprised; I held up my fist which was clutching the flyer I’d taken off the wall in front of the grocery store.

  “Are they still here?”

  “Of course. All of them.” She smiled again and led me to the stall. There stood a workbench, and next to it were stacks of wood. A huge wagon wheel entwined with ivy hung on the wall.

  “Here.” The woman grabbed me carefully by the sleeve when I started in the wrong direction. She put a few crumbling foul-smelling lumps in my hand. “Give it to the mother.”

  The mother licked my hand after I held out the lumps. Her tickly warm tongue sought out any remaining crumbs between my fingers. She had a pointy nose and bright eyes. Three fat babies ran toward me howling and bustled about my feet.

  “All three?” The woman looked at me for a moment and then turned her face to the sun again. I squatted down to pet the mother.

  “No,” I said. “Only two, unfortunately.”

  She handed me a beat-up wicker basket, lined it with a tattered wool blanket, and together we trapped two of the puppies, a reddish one and another with black spots, and set them in the basket. They nudged each other and whimpered. The woman said something about chips and vaccinations but I didn’t listen. I petted the puppies. Then I handed the woman a hundred euros.

  She took the money and put it in the pocket on the front of her apron.

  “I can’t just give them away. Things that don’t cost anything don’t have any value.” She sounded as if she was trying
to apologize.

  “I know,” I said. “You’re totally right.”

  The mother wagged her tail as if she couldn’t think of anything nicer than being freed of two of her children. I petted her one last time. The woman took me to the door.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” she said when I was back out on the street. “Peace to his soul.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I would have recognized you anyway, though,” she said. “You used to come past here all the time on the way to kindergarten.”

  She seemed to be waiting for an answer, but I stood there mute with the basket of puppies pressed to my chest. Then she smiled one last time and closed the door, and I hadn’t asked her if she’d ever really had a horse in the stalls.

  Are you crazy?” shouted Tammy. “How do you see it working?”

  “I promised him,” I said.

  “You’re a regular superhero—you promise things and then I’m the bad guy. How dare you? What am I supposed to feed it?”

  “I’ll pay for the food,” I said. “And I’ll take him whenever you go on vacation.”

  “That’s easy to say!”

  We both turned at the same time to the window. Ferdi was running through the garden. The puppies waddled after him and yelped excitedly. When I saw Ferdi’s face I had to look away to avoid having something burst inside me. I threw a glance at Tammy. Tears were running down her face, but she was smiling.

  “Come with me to Berlin,” I said. “You don’t have to stay here. I’ll take care of you. As best I can.”